Kenneth Hodge, who police say was fatally shot Oct. 25 by his brother, had turned his life around after his release from prison two years ago, people who knew him said.
The 32-year-old was an apprentice plumber and was working towards getting a plumbing license, according to family members.
He had his own apartment in Cheviot. He had a girlfriend.
He also had been a featured speaker at a law enforcement conference at Yale University’s law school, to share his story of redemption after spending more than 11 years in prison.
“He had changed his heart, had got himself together and was working to do good,” his father, Paul Hodge, told The Enquirer.
That was shattered when police say Kenneth Hodge's 33-year-old brother, Kurtis, shot him multiple times – an incident Paul Hodge blamed on Kurtis' intoxication and misdirected rage. He said Kurtis was living with their mother, Paul’s former wife, in an apartment below Kenneth’s.
The two brothers were going in different directions, their father said. Kurtis, he said, “was fighting his own demons” and tended to blame others “for his own shortcomings.” Kurtis had faced drug and gun charges in recent years.
Kenneth, he said, had calmed his brother down earlier that day. But by the evening, Kurtis “was back to losing it and going off.”
Paul Hodge said Kenneth was “trying to talk sense into him.”
Police say in court documents that Kurtis shot his brother in the upper torso and both thighs. When Kenneth tried to run, Kurtis shot him in the back, the documents say.
Paul Hodge said the shooting is "the hardest thing any father could deal with." He hopes Kurtis "takes the time that he has and gets his spirit right – in other words, makes amends with God."
The Enquirer talked to Kenneth Hodge in 2019, shortly after his release from prison. He described how he went through a personal transformation in prison.
He put his mind to work. He earned a GED. He learned skills including plumbing. He completed classes on victim awareness and anger management. He developed a work ethic that he said had been dormant.
It was a remarkable transformation from where he had been as an 18-year-old, when he was arrested for an armed robbery that received national attention. Kenneth described himself as being filled with anger and lacking direction at the time.
The incident that sent him to prison happened in 2007. Kenneth and two others robbed Boy Scouts and their fathers who were selling Christmas trees in North College Hill to raise money for their troop.
Kenneth was sentenced to 18 years in prison. But attorneys with the Ohio Justice and Policy Center fought for his early release after he’d served more than half of that sentence. In 2019, a Hamilton County judge ordered that Kenneth’s prison sentence be suspended, and he was released.
David Singleton, who heads the OJPC, said Kenneth had been doing everything right since his release from prison.
“He was determined that he was going to do it the right way,” Singleton said. “I’m proud of him. I’m proud of who he became.”
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